Love, like hope, sometimes soars farther than one can reach.
• • •
SHE HAD THE SMELL of death about her. This we could tell as soon as we saw her, a scent unnatural even here in the Tombs where death surrounds us. We care for the dead here, the dead of New City across the great river; we guard them from those of the ghoul-haunted Old City to west and south of us, blue corpse-lights flickering under a steaming moon, who would despoil them.
But she was still living.
And other things, too, seemed odd about this woman who walked the causeway, from east, to approach us, and pulled the bell-pull once. She wore her black, all-encompassing day-chador although it was still night, her sunhat and day-mask—the mask, we could see, of a beautiful woman. At least we assumed its shaped features were her own, protecting those underneath from the sun’s searing rays should she not find shelter by the dawn’s rising.
Of course we would shelter her, even as we ourselves descend to tomb-tunnels, crypts, and mausolea, to rest with our charges from daylight’s actinic glare. Knowing the dead, you see—we who live with them.
It is our vocation.
And so it was I, Philac, one of the gate guards, who asked, as we let her in: “What brings you here, lady? And why alone like this, and not with the corpse trains that ply our bridge nightly, the last just departed to seek, perhaps, one more load.
“Do you come here to mourn?”
She nodded—then shook her head. “I do not know,” she said. “I come to seek a tomb. That is, a new grave.”
“For one just deceased, then? I understand, yes.” I motioned for one of the other guards to run, to fetch a curator—one who had knowledge of Tomb-lore both past and now—because the fact was I did not understand her. Why had she not dealt with a corpse-train master, whose duty it was to make such arrangements, for digging, for grave gifts, locations, and carvings? The myriad details that accompany a burying.
I then had her come with me into our guards’ quarters, seeing to east the first signs of the sun’s ascent, bloated and poisoned—each new summer hotter than that which preceded it—and saw, as she walked, although limping and tired, that she carried herself as a person of quality. One who had riches.
She spoke with the accent of one who was used to wealth.
And, yet, she walked alone—a practice dangerous for one such as her, especially a lady. Ghouls had been active within the Old City. We saw them from our walls. More active lately than for many weeks now, as if they planned something—a major attack on us?—or otherwise engaged in some great project. Not this night, mind you, but nights just before.
Just two nights past we had seen, as if a star, a light rise from the south—from within the ghoul-lands, reflected as well in the river’s black water. A trick to distract us?
But that was the past, and this night all had seemed calm. I bade her, thus, to take off her travel garb, but she declined to.
I offered her berry wine, fermented from bushes that grow in shadow, to north of tomb-structures. In hollows where mist collects.
“How may I address you, my lady?” I asked her.
Her day-mask still on, she said: “I am Delphinion. As I say, I have come to seek a grave plot. I have come some distance–”
A clatter, then. The curator had arrived!
“Go on,” he said for me, he, too, in day-gear, as he found himself a chair facing across from her.
“As I say, my name is Delphinion. I have been married—my husband was Rhodrar, a man of standing within the New City. A friend of its mayor.”
The curator nodded.
“And I, too, have standing, not just from my marriage. My father was rich as well, and I his only child. He is among those here—I have been to his grave. I have made offerings, as has been proper.”
The curator nodded again. “And now?” he said.
“Ah,” Delphinion said. She loosed her chador below her mask’s neck-piece, to show, within the cleft between her breasts, a flash of diamonds. Of rubies and gold fittings.
“There is more,” she added, “about my person, as you shall see soon enough. All that I wear may be considered a funeral donation.”
“And grave goods as well … ?”
She shrugged, fastening her front again.
“I see,” the curator said. “Then, for your husband … ”
Delphinion nodded. “We were not long married, Rhodrar and I, but for all that we loved each other deeply. Perhaps all the more so. It was, as you scholars say, our z’étoile—our fate-star to do such. It has been explained to me by another, if not a curator of the Tombs like yourself, a scholar nonetheless.
“One from the Old City.”
I and my fellow guards shrank back somewhat at that. Several, instinctively, grasped for their ratpicks, some for their iron-shod staffs—from the ruins to the south?
“Ah,” the curator sighed.
“Yes,” she said. “I have been among the ghouls. I have consulted a Necromancer, one of those who rule them.
“I needed a favor—and, as you’ve seen, I could pay.”
“Go on,” the curator said.
“Rhodrar died just last week. Suddenly. In the day, when we were sleeping. A weak heart, perhaps, or some sickness inherited—there is a legend his family had some river blood in its ancestry, that of the boat-gypsies who die young also. I do not know what caused it.
“But I knew this—that I loved him deeply.
“It was not fair, you understand, that he should die so soon, with us scarcely married. Not even a month by then. I told his parents this when they would have me arrange for his funeral—that I would not give Rhodrar up quite so quickly.
“Instead, I would save him.
“You see, I knew some things taught me by my father, things not every girl learns. About the Old City. Of science and theosophy. Of the parts of the soul–”
“Of the z’étoile, yes,” the curator broke in. “You already mentioned it—that which determines the destinies of us all, but only broadly. You must understand that. It does not force us to paths, but, at most, shows us ways–”
Delphinion answered: “And other soul-parts too, though. Psyche and animus. The first of these which gives form to one’s will—making one who one is. And the second which gives motion. The former which hovers about one’s body, sometimes for weeks and more, until it can be sure that it is truly dead. For one may not be, you know.
“Thus there are Walkings—’ghosts’ as they have sometimes been called by the Ancients. And, sometimes, more than that.
“Corpses re-vitalized.”
“Yes,” the curator said. “But now you speak of myths. Of ancient stories. Of Gombar and his corpse-bride, the Emperor’s daughter, dead three thousand years or more–”
“Brought back by love’s power,” Delphinion said.
“And that of science also,” the curator answered. “And other tales as well. But the point is, these are legends. Stories of olden days, when people braved the sun without their flesh blistering. When mutations were still rare. Not like our modern times, when neon searchlights course from the New City. When waste lands surround all. When–”
“Be that as it may be,” Delphinion continued. “Old times or modern times—love has not changed so much. And my love, especially, had yet to be satisfied.
“So I sought one who would—who could save my husband. Yes, a Necromancer. I knew the limits of New City’s scientists. So, Rhodrar’s corpse on my back, already stiffening, I sought relief to the south, passing the plaza where the New City’s poor leave their own dead, sometimes, in that way to appease the ghouls. Clothed as I am clothed now. Crossing the dry stream that marks the border between us and ghoul-lands.
“I passed the ruin-portals, into the Old City, ghoul-lights now surrounding me. Flickering blue corpse-flames.
“I heard the whispers: ‘Why comes she, thus, here?’ ‘Does she bring an offering?’ ‘It cannot be for us—see how well she is dressed. She and the corpse also.’ ‘But, if not for us, who?’
“’Who,’ indeed!
“Thus, at last, they—just as you here have done—fetched one who might know, or who at least might understand the right questions to be asked: Not so much ‘who?’ as ‘why?’
“Or, perhaps, this time ‘how?’
“I was on strange ground: I knew not the answers. Trembling, I waited as one cloaked in shadow approached me, mincingly. Black, indefined—as if clouds of an acid-storm, such as we have in fall. Drifting, you see, that way.
“Not walking, as a man.
“Hooded. Chadored. No face within that hood—only more blackness when, then, the ground shook with voice.
“‘m I what you seek, child? A Necromancer?’
“I nodded, dumbly.
“‘Then come,’ he motioned. I say it was he, although I do not really know that. A ‘he’ or a ‘she’—or ‘it.’ Nor do I know his name. I do not think they have names, such as you and me.
“Frightened, I followed, Rhodrar’s corpse on my back. Stammering, I explained … ”
Here she fell silent a moment. Sobbing. The curator motioned for us to bring more wine. A stronger wine this time.
He offered her some to drink.
“Thank you,” she finally said. “You understand me. It pains me to recollect.
“Nevertheless, I must tell you my story. I told him why I had come—about my husband. How I could pay richly to have Rhodrar back again.
“Back with me, living.
“This time his voice gentled. ‘It is not so easy,’ he said, ‘to bring lovers back. That is, the soul entire—not just the moving force. That latter we can restore practically with just the snap of a finger, to form what you New Cityers call, sometimes, le zombi.’
“He spoke in the formal French.
“But he continued: ‘That is not what you wish, I think, but I will do one thing now to halt the corpse’s rot. That will be easy too. But, for the other ….’
“‘Oui, seigneur?’ I prompted. I spoke in the French as well.
“‘For the other, the true soul, that will be much harder. But you must realize that even we Necromancers know what love is. How it must be fulfilled.
“‘And so there may be a way—’”
Here she fell sobbing again, while we tried to help the curator to comfort her. Finally, she nodded.
“This ‘way,’” the curator said, “might it have something to do with two nights ago. That is, before this one. In the south, we saw a light, one high up in the sky. We saw it rising.”
She nodded once more. “Yes. Illuminated with corpse-gas searchlights, so those on the ground could see. We in the New City are not the only ones who can project light beams. But also in hopes that a soul might be beckoned.
“Instead of what did come … ”
“We saw it rise higher,” the curator said, “beyond the ground’s light beams. Still glowing, however, as if with its own lights.
“But then a blackness.”
“Yes,” she answered. “What you saw were its running lights, that which the Necromancer and I had built. And something else as well. It was a flying thing—souls, you see, mostly inhabit the air. They are not ground-bound, as we are. Therefore, to seek one, or so the Necromancer explained to me, we must fly too. Or, at least, rise up to it.
“So he had ghouls under his command build a keel, as if to make a boat. But on this keel he had built a great framework, of hoops and circles, from the wing-bones of huge birds, both lightweight and strong and stiff. These he had bound with wires, twisted, thin metal to form a netting, within which he placed skin bags—huge, too, and air-tight.
“Ballonnets, he called them, speaking the formal French. Trapped thus within the wires.
“With river-reeds, dried and tough, he had his ghouls weave baskets, two of them, each large enough to hold a man. Or, rather, one for a man and a woman—this to be in the front, containing Rhodrar and me. While in back, one with him, from which hung ropes to a device above the keel which he would steer with.
“Below this one, also, he had constructed a clockwork machine, but with screw-blades instead of hands. This to give power, to move through the air with. Or so he explained to me. And, between the baskets—connecting them, as it were—a kind of catwalk with a weight attached to it, that could be slid back and forth. For ‘trim control,’ he said.
“I did not know these words. Even in French: Direger? Equilibrage? Not the way he used them—although I would, later.
“As, on that night you cite—two nights ago, you say? I have lost track of time. Anyway, on that night, one of oppressive heat, of still, heavy air but with rumblings to north and east, he ordered his ghoul-helpers to bring up great pipes to these frame-enclosed air-tight sacks. He had me place Rhodrar’s corpse in the fore-basket, and climb in myself with it.
“He had corpse-gas pumped into these ballonnets, or so he called out to me, himself in the back-basket.
“The frame strained above us, bone-hooped and coppery. While ghouls, below us now, clutched ropes to keep us down. Unhooking, now, the pipes–
“I nearly lost my soul!
“The ghouls had released us. We shot in the air, the pinpricks of lights below—these were the searchlights! The great river which divides the Tombs from New City, it seemed just a stream now. New City itself, drifting from us to the north, even though our clockwork moteur kept us pointed toward it—even with its lights blazing red, purple, gold, topaz, and emerald—seemed but a village.
“Then: ‘Look up, above us!’ the Necromancer called, from his nest behind mine. Mine that I shared with the corpse of my Rhodrar.
“I looked above. Blue sparks crept over our framework! Crackling and flashing!”
“The second light, then,” the curator broke in. “The one we saw after. When you were too high to be seen in the searchlights, yet brighter and larger than your running lanterns. The ones that you carried.
“But was that not dangerous? That is, does not corpse-gas burn?”
She nodded. “Yes, I think. That is, the Necromancer explained it—but I was too frightened of everything then, you see. What were the words he used?
“Yes. Le feu Saint-Elme. He said it was soul-charged, akin to lightning, because we attracted it. Crackling with storm-fire. You know the feeling, before there’s to be a rain, your skin’s sometimes all prickly. Because souls like lightning, too, slipping in cloud-layers, riding wind currents there. Because that’s what souls do—so he explained it to me.
“And as for our ballonnets, they would be safe enough, because our metal-wired framework carried the sparks from them. Down to our baskets.
“Or, more properly, my basket—where Rhodrar lay with me, his head cradled in my lap.
“Blue sparks surrounded us—I thought I saw him move. An eyelid flutter! I kissed him on the lips.
“But, once more, the Necromancer shouted. ‘Something is wrong!’ he screamed. ‘That cloud approaching—’
“I saw it. All black. But amorphous and moving, splitting and shifting—not like a cloud at all.
“Then it was on us. A storm not of rain, but birds! Carrion birds! Night birds! Owls and juggers! King-vultures, ravens! Of hooked beaks and feathers.
“They tore our ballonnets. They stole—they ate—Rhodrar, right there where I sat with him.
“I could not stop them.
“I called behind me, to the Necromancer, but he, too, was helpless. Surrounded, too, by the birds, fighting to keep our machine from falling.
“And yet we did go down.
“I landed, hard, but the basket was flexible. Strong and yet yielding—the fall scarcely harmed me.
“I could not find Rhodrar, not even a bone left. Nor the Necromancer, although I searched for him. I do not know if he came down in his basket, but fled before I did. Or if the birds ate him too.
“And so I wandered. I saw, in the great distance, the lights of New City, so I took that as my guide. Threading my way through the alleys of Old City, its ruins and tunnels.
“At dawn, the ghouls took me in. They did no hurt to me—it is their law, you know, that they are not to murder the living, unless in a fight or for some provocation—though I did not eat their food. Then, the next night, my journey continued.
“I think it was that night—or was it the one after? This night, just passed, that I came to the causeway. I knew it was almost dawn. I saw the last of the corpse trains departing, its high-wheeled carts passing me. Emptied of cargo.
“I walked the causeway, alone, as you saw me. And pulled on the bell-cord once.
“And so I am here now.”
“Yes,” the curator said, helping her when she gestured her wish to stand. I had not realized myself, until then, how weak she had become, both from her journey and what she had been through before. She who was wealthy, of stature in the New City, and yet as fragile herself as a flower—such as we heaped on graves.
I watched as she trembled at the curator’s next question: “Why, then, the bell-pull? The train masters, as you know, pull it once for each corpse, so we will prepare for the number they carry. But you come to us alone, your husband’s corpse taken, already, from you.”
She nodded. She reached up. She took off her day-mask and loosed her chador, letting it fall to the ground at her feet. Her body beneath it, bare, save for her jewelry. Encrusting it, breasts and hips, covering her over. More fully than clothing.
But it was her face we saw, half eaten by the birds! The flesh pecked away from it, half-destroyed in their greed.
The half she had pressed to her husband’s own head, in vain to protect it.
The other side beautiful, still—and, in that way, perhaps all the more grotesque. Especially when she smiled: “They did not hurt my soul. Nor did they Rhodrar’s. I know now he waits for me.
“What he will see of me is what I was before. What we both remember.”
Her body, too, half-torn.
“Yes,” the curator said, after a pause. “And I understand, now, what you meant of z’étoile.”
She nodded again. “I would have my tomb look south, toward where we met briefly, once more, in that basket. To where I last left him. And the roof above it to be windowed, of course, to be open to the sky.”
The curator motioned to me. To the others. To fetch diggers. Builders. Whatever might be needed.
“Of course,” he answered.